


Through Her Eyes

by RomanceAddiction



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen, mentions of Tommy/Laurel, one-sided Oliver/Laurel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomanceAddiction/pseuds/RomanceAddiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not jealous, she tells herself.</p><p>One shots from Laurel's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurel doesn't hate her...exactly.

  Laurel doesn't hate her...exactly.

  She leans back on one of the tables, unsure of what else to do since done briefing them about the latest case. Many of the Glade's residents had fallen victim to the shady dealings of one Daryl Stevens. His company had boasted of using the best materials to rebuild the Glades and were charging the residents lower prices "out of the goodness of his heart." Many had put their faith in him and ended up with shoddily built houses with cheap materials. A few had died when their heaters failed to work in the cold of winter, or a section of their roof fell down at the slightest quake. With his army of highly paid lawyers and shady dealings with the mafia who threatened those who dared testify against him, Laurel had turned to the Arrow for help.

  Silently, Laurel observes the blonde. Her hands move fast over the keyboard as she attempts to find traces of Daryl Steven's shady dealings.

  Felicity Meghan Smoak.

 

In the beginning, before she knew about all this, she hadn't given Felicity much thought. She vaguely remembered seeing the blonde hang around Verdant pretty often, usually with Oliver's bodyguard. She didn't think much of it. The one time they'd met then, briefly, she'd babbled a while about who she was before finally explaining that she was helping Oliver to set up his modem for the club. It made sense, after 5 years on an island Oliver still had a lot of catching up to do in terms of technology.

  She began seeing Felicity around more often after the second time Oliver disappeared, briefly after the so-called Undertaking. Laurel had been too wrapped up in her grief over Tommy's death and the loss of her job to think much about anyone else at the time. But she had gone over to Queen Consolidated a few times to look for Oliver and she was there. Sitting in a desk outside Oliver's office, the words **Felicity Smoak, Executive Assistant** prominently displayed on her desk.

 

  _She paused on her way into Oliver's office. "I thought you were Oliver's IT helper."_

_Felicity looked up at her, hands still hovering over the keyboard. "Yeah well, Oli-," she cleared her throat. "Mr Queen decided that my talents were needed...elsewhere, so...here I am," she shrugged._

_Oliver had stepped out of the office then. Laurel turned to him, forgetting all about Felicity's sudden change of job._

 

When Slade Wilson showed up at her door in the middle of the night and dropped the bombshell on her _("Oliver Queen is the Arrow.")_ , she hadn't known how to react at first. Standing in the doorway of her apartment as she watched him walk away, her brain tried to process the information it had just received.

  Somehow, it didn't shock her as much as she knew it was supposed to. She didn't confront Oliver with the knowledge until much later, when the city was burning again and the Arrow had to be called upon once more.

  In the back of her mind, she'd always suspected something was off about Oliver after he'd returned from the island. He tried acting like the carefree billionaire and...playboy he had been in the past. But when he smiled, somehow it didn't quite reach his eyes. There had been a quiet intensity burning in them that he never quite seemed to be able to hide. She'd been so angry at him when he first came back, for cheating on her, for dragging her sister into his mess. She didn't realize the extent of the island's influence on him until she saw his scars shortly after.

  She'd had her suspicions at first but when Oliver had passed the lie detector test in front of her father, she'd accepted the results and thought nothing more of it. Even though the coincidences kept piling up, she refused to see what had been in front of her all along.

  She realized she'd been forcing her eyes shut, trying to see Oliver as the boy she grew up with, not the man that came back.

 

She turned to observe Oliver training with his bodyguard, Diggle she remembered. Metal sticks clanged as they practiced fighting. His body was more muscular than she remembered, littered with scars and a few odd tattoos. Oliver had been pretty fit even before the island, but that had mostly been to attract other women. The muscles he had now had been built through his trials on the island and honed in the battleground of the city, not weekly visits to the gym.

  The computer beeped then. Felicity pumped her fist in the air as she turned towards the two guys.

  "I got a lead on Daryl Stevens. It seems his company wired 30,000 dollars to an anonymous account. Managed to trace it back to it's source and looks like we've got a lead on the gang he's been hiring to threaten the witnesses from testifying about his under the table dealings."

  Laurel tells herself she's not jealous as she watches Oliver gaze intensely at Felicity, absorbing the stream of info she provides.

  She's not jealous, she tells herself as Oliver gently squeezes Felicity's shoulder and promises to return safely.

  She turns to watch Oliver leave and tries to ignore that fact that she can see Felicity do the same out the corner of her eye. As the door closes, she turns to Laurel and grins," Looks like it's another girl's night tonight. What should we get, sushi or dim sum?" She pats her tummy," Big Belly's giving me a big belly so I'm trying to cut down."

  Laurel smiles faintly back," Sushi, I guess."

  Nodding, she smiles back and turns towards the phone to order their dinner.

  She's _not_ jealous, Laurel tells herself. But she can't help thinking how Oliver had glanced back at Felicity with a strange lingering look as he was walking off and she knows she's forcing her eyes shut again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanfiction in...years. What has the Arrow hiatus done to me. @~@  
> I was trying to explore Laurel's view of Felicity after the finale but it somehow became mostly Laurel thinking about Oliver? 
> 
> I have 1 or 2 more story ideas but other prompts are appreciated as well. Trying to do a series of one-shots in Laurel's point of view. 
> 
> Unbeta-ed. Please feel free to provide contrsuctive criticism. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed my little one-shot. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ollie is a boy's name but Oliver is a man now.
> 
> Laurel reflects on how Oliver has changed since returning from the island.

Sometimes, its hard to reconcile the Ollie she had known from childhood and the Ollie she knows now. The island had changed him of course, but she frequently wonders what exactly happened for the change to be so drastic. Even now, 2 years later, she barely knows the extent of what he went through there. On the (extremely) rare occasions she discussed such thoughts with Felicity, she too admitted that Oliver barely spoke about his experiences there. Even when they encountered enemies that had returned to haunt him from that past, like Slade Wilson, he only revealed the barest amount of information.

She's the only one that calls him Ollie now. Sara has re-joined the League of Assassins, Tommy and his father are dead, his mother was murdered and Thea still hasn't been found after she ran away during the whole Slade Wilson incident. Everyone else knows him as Oliver. It's more out of habit than anything. Sometimes, even she feels weird calling him that. Ollie is a boy's name but Oliver is a man now.

In a way, she supposes it helps her remember the person he once was. There had been a children's show on TV called "The Adventures of Ollie the Octopus". Thea loved it when she was younger. She watched it every day without fail, even if it was just a rerun. And being the little terror that she was, she dragged anyone around to watch it with her. That usually meant Oliver, whom she already had wrapped around her little finger anyway.

She was 4 so Oliver was a little hard for her to pronounce. The name Ollie stuck long after the show had ended and Thea grew out of it. Laurel and Tommy had found it amusing and kept up the nickname. Really, for all his swagger, Oliver was a total pushover when it came to his baby sister. He'd tried to retaliate by giving her a nickname too but "Speedy" was all he managed to come up with. "Because I can never catch that little monster," he'd grumbled. 

Laurel thinks that was probably one of the reasons she fell in love with him. Sure they had been childhood friends but on the surface, they didn't really make sense as a couple. She had always been studious and hardworking, most days were spent trying to attain her goal of becoming the best lawyer in Starling City. He was lazy and took all he had for granted, having been born with a platinum spoon in his mouth. Most of his days had been spent partying with Tommy, dragging Laurel along whenever he could. If she was busy, it was no hard task for him to find another pretty young thing to spend the night with. Laurel knew she was smart but somehow, she always fell for the apologies and hastily bought gifts. And the puppy dog eyes he gave as he muttered a string of apologies and promises they both knew he wouldn't keep.

But with Thea he was different. To the rest of the world he was a disappointment, constantly failing and dropping out of school. But to Thea, he was a hero and he tried to live up to that. He hadn't been great with kids when he was younger. She remembered a whole afternoon he had spent sulking when she made him accompany her while she babysat her neighbour's toddlers. She never made him accompany her for babysitting again. 

In the beginning, when Moira first found out she was pregnant, he'd sulked the whole 9 months before Thea was born. Really, he'd been unbearable. Whenever they hung out, he just complained about how his parents were neglecting him now that there was a new baby on the way. She and Tommy just nodded and sighed. Really, he could be such a drama queen and always needed to be the centre of attention. 

But then Thea was born and after a while, she noticed a changed in him. She remembered the time Tommy nearly fainted in shock when he actually passed on attending a birthday party because he had to look after his sister. It wasn't like they couldn't afford the best babysitter money could buy but he'd insisted. Their parents were going to be overseas for business and he didn't want to leave her alone. He could be really sweet when the mood struck him. 

Though the incident that left the biggest impression on her, and probably when she really started to fall for him, was the day Thea fell off her horse.

Thea had gotten a horse for her birthday and she'd been dying to ride it. As soon as school had closed for the holidays, she'd begged for a weekend at the summer house near the stables where they kept all the horses. Perhaps she'd been too overexcited, or maybe she was trying to show off to all of them that she could handle her horse as well as her old pony. For whatever reason, she'd been thrown off before anyone else had time to react. Everyone panicked. Moira immediately called a doctor, as well as her husband who was away on a business trip. Tommy and Laurel just stood around, unsure of what to do as the adults around them hurried about. But Oliver had gently wiped away her tears and tried to cheer her up as they carefully carried her into the house. She stopped crying even before the ambulance arrived. The gentle look he gave as he tried to console his beloved sister lingered on her mind. They officially became a couple a few months after that. 

Oliver used to smile all the time. He rarely does so now, with the pressure of trying to get back his family's company, protecting the lives of Starling City's citizens as the Arrow and trying to find his sister Thea. He shoulders so many burdens. The Oliver of old was keen to shrug off as many as he could. He was repeatedly kicked out of college not because he couldn't catch up, he could if he even put in a minimal amount of effort. But he blew off his classes to party instead. Every time he'd been kicked out, he'd smiled sheepishly and shrugged. She's tried to get him to at least put in enough effort to graduate with a passing grade but he always that he would eventually take over his family's company anyway. There was no point putting in so much effort when he could just pay people to do the work for him. Then he would charm her with his trademark playboy grin and the issue would be dropped, until the next time.

She always fell for that. The cheeky grin, slight tilt of the head and bright blue puppy dog eyes. It helped him get out of trouble, though sometimes it also caused him a fair share as well. But it was mostly shallow, he used it to gain people's attention, or lust. It irritated Laurel how she fell for it time and time again. 

The ones she loved were the warm gentle smiles he tried to hide. When he'd first asked her out (shyly, to her surprise), when she told him how much she loved her presents (the ones that he'd picked out specially, not the various trinkets he'd bought to apologies for yet another "incident"), whenever he...stayed the night. That was what she missed the most about the old Ollie, her Ollie. Oliver did, occasionally, smile like he used to. But not at her. Not anymore. 

She wonders if Felicity notices, or if she's just pretending to ignore them. Everyone else definitely does. The way Digg clears his throat a bit too loudly every time his eyes linger too long at her back, the way Roy's head shakes when he tries to hide his amusement at another of Felicity's babbling tangents. They know. She doesn't know how long this has been going on but she knows, it's only a matter of time before they're together. For real.

She knows she's being selfish, she knows she's the one who pushed him away. She knows that no one would miss the careless, petty child that left, but some days, particularly on a bad night, Laurel mourns his loss all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sort of iffy about this oneshot. But it's been sitting in the notebook for so long, I decided to give it a chance and post it up. It sort of went in a slightly different direction than I originally intended. 
> 
> Please feel free to comment of there are any improvements that need to be made. Still rather new to the whole fanfiction thing :x


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She never thought she would be so happy seeing Oliver Queen married...to someone else.

She never thought she would be so happy seeing Oliver Queen married...to someone else. Despite the rushed vows (and the knowledge of certain death if their plan was leaked), she has never seen 2 people as happy as they are at the moment.

For years it had been her dream. Mrs Laurel Queen. (Teenage Laurel would never admit it but she scribbled it all over her diary, which she would also never admit to owning.)   
Even after the countless lies and women he'd cheated on her with, she had never given up on that dream. Until that fateful day when the Queen's Gambit had sunk, taking her dreams and loved ones with it into the watery depths of the ocean.

Even so, a small part of her still clung to it. When he had returned and seemed completely changed, she had initially backed off as he'd warmed. But something kept drawing her back in. In hindsight, she realized it was the distant hope of happiness she had clung to. It was her life raft when everything else around her seemed to be crumbling. (Certain nights, she wishes she could return to that time, when the only thing she worried about was her studies and when Oliver was finally going to pop the question.) 

Yet, it was that hope which led to her greatest sorrow. She was so focused on a far-off, imaginary happiness, she became blind to what she already had by her side. And in one earth-shattering night, she lost what could have been a perfectly happy future.

Palmer recites the final vows that officially bind Oliver and Felicity as husband and wife and she smiles along with the others. (It is not safe to clap. The other League members might be alerted to their plot.)  
As the newly weds exchange their first kiss as husband and wife, Laurel vows to help the, ensure this happiness will last forever. She has known Oliver most of her life, and Felicity only recently, but she strongly wishes for them to have what she knows she has lost forever. A long, happy life with the other half of their soul.

She hopes the plan will work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't usually post spec fic but this idea kind of got hold so I thought I'd give it a shot. And I really wanted to write more oneshots from Laurel's POV again. 
> 
> So this is based on a theory which I saw on tumblr (if someone could point out the specific post that would be great because I don't remember at the moment) which suggested since Ray is there he might be able to marry Oliver and Felicity before the wedding ceremony between Oliver and Nyssa (because that fact about Ray being an ordained minister seemed to random to be just thrown in there for no purpose)
> 
> I am...Meh about the whole Olicity Wedding Theory. I'm just gonna wait and see what the writer's decide to do onscreen but the inspiration for this story struck so...here it is.
> 
> Entirely unbeat-ed. Please feel free to point out any mistakes I might have made. 
> 
> Reviews are <3


End file.
